Underground dance music supergroup Future Brown are talking about how they got their name, inspired by an unusual day out in upstate New York. "Our friend was on mushrooms in the forest," begins the group's Fatima Al Qadiri. "He invented this colour that was an unnatural shade of brown, an artificial shade that doesn't exist in nature. That's what Future Brown is as a concept."

It's fitting: everything about the four-piece – comprised of Kuwaiti-born Al Qadiri, Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda AKA LA duo Nguzunguzu, and J-Cush, the boss of NYC label Lit City Trax – is as forward-thinking as their name suggests. They have a firm eye on new musical horizons, crisscrossing genre boundaries and geographical borders, from rap and R&B to footwork and dancehall. "We never sat down and were like, 'Hey, let's make a reggaeton beat now,' but we still came out with tracks that crossed over many different genres," says Maroof. "We're influenced by stuff from all over the world because we have access to it," adds J-Cush. "It's just raw, resourceful music."

From day one, the plan was to reach out to vocalists around the globe. For their forthcoming debut album, they worked from a dream list scribbled on an A4 sheet of paper and eventually roped in rising R&B star Kelela, Chicago rapper Tink, Jamaican dancehall artist Timberlee and London grime MCs including Roll Deep's Riko Dan and Ruff Sqwad's Prince Rapid. Admirably, despite the range of collaborators and their own individual touring schedules, it was largely an IRL project. "Versus the way a lot of people collaborate today [ie, emailing tracks back and forth] probably 90% of the album has been made together in the studio," says Pineda. Vitally, everyone was up for stepping outside their comfort zone. "It's cool to find people who are as open-minded as us – and everyone has been," says J-Cush. "All these vocalists delivered on 10."

Future Brown are making exciting music that requires neither a formulaic approach nor a blockbuster budget. "The whole point of this project is not to follow some script," says Al Qadiri. "Everything is about dreaming as big as you can." It does help if you have some well-connected friends, however. Future Brown have connections in the fashion industry, last year soundtracking a surreal film for the brand Telfar. They also collaborated with art collective Thunder Horse on a piece for MoMA's sister gallery PS1, in which basketball players bounced through drills in time to their music.

Future Brown have a DIY ethos. At the same time, though, their aesthetic is unwaveringly high-definition. That said, with a host of grime MCs lined up to jump on their beats at their debut show in London, their ambition is simple: "Good tunes, sick bars".